As Vlad disappeared down the hallway, the door they had been talking in front of eased open.
"You don't want to be called D'any'a?" a voice asked, causing Danny to jump violently in surprise.
His sister was standing at his side, looking up at him with wide eyes.
"Oh um, not really," he admitted. "It's just not what I'm used to."
A sudden thought occurred to him as he looked down at his sister.
"Hey, you haven't told me your name yet!"
She beamed up at him.
"My name's D'yani. The older kids told me that a lot of siblings had close sounding names."
"Huh, that's cool! Are there many siblings in the group?"
D'yani shook her head.
"There's only one other pair of blood siblings besides us. Two of the older girls are sisters. A lot of us had siblings before..."
She trailed off, looking embarrassed and upset. Danny put an arm around her shoulders.
"Hey, Vlad told me there was a special room you wanted to show me. Still up for it?"
She nodded, the smile returning to her face as she headed off down the hall. Danny followed closely behind, a pang of sadness from her words lingering in his heart. Only one other pair of siblings. So many families had been torn apart that day. He and D'yani had been luckier than they had any right to be.
She lead him down the first hall turn off they reached until they reached a door at the end. The metal handle of the door was well worn and smooth. Danny guessed that this room saw a lot of usage.
"We call this the memory room," D'yani explained, pushing the door open.
Danny stepped into the room. Plants lined every wall of the long room, all of them glowing softly. Maps and pictures papered the walls. Danny even noticed several messy children's drawings among the decorations. He walked into the quiet room with a reverence and respect. Something about this place felt special. Almost sacred.
"What is all of this?" he asked D'yani.
"This is all we have left of Halpha," she explained, gently stroking a leaf of a plant as she walked past it. "A few plant samples, some maps, books, and whatever memories we were able to draw or write down."
She handed him a thick hand bound book. Danny turned the pages slowly, drinking in the colorful scribblings made by young Halphas trying to capture their memories of home. Pain pricked at his heart as he looked through childish family portraits of loved ones that were long since dead.
"That one's mine," D'yani pointed out, directing his attention to a smudged picture of a small family. There was his mother, father, sister, and him, roughly rendered in a child's hand. Childish flowers and stars framed the picture.
"It's hard to remember now," D'yani admitted. "I was really little when we left. But the older kids remember. They taught us what it was like on Halpha."
Danny closed the book gently, like it was a living thing. He began to wander slowly among the plants. There was something nagging at the back of his memory... one of the first things Space Corps brought back to him. A sweet and familiar smell...
He stopped. There it was. A small pot of gently glowing purple flowers. Danny lowered his face toward them, breathing in deeply. The smell brought back a flood of feelings. Not memory. The past was too distant for memory. But the sweet smell brought back the feelings of peace and happiness on warm summer days. Danny cupped the small blossoms in his hand, holding a small piece of home.
YOU ARE READING
Split Between Stars
Science Fiction(Sequel to Half Life) Danny has lived his whole life thinking he was the sole survivor of Halpha's destruction. Space Corps has hunted him and his kind for years, making it almost impossible to survive. But after being saved from their clutches at...
